Weather pristine, friends break “pita chips over lunch, gather round the mah jongg campfire- add a friend from high school and three more from the heart of home and a recipe of success is cooking. The night follows the theme of the day. Dinner with dear friends, Tina fey’s latest movie through which a well deserved nap is grabbed, add a pinch of popcorn and we’re on our way. With a drink after the movies at our friend’s happy home we leave feeling the day drip through us like a Vit C cocktail. We drive 5 minutes and we are home ONLY to find we left the colloquial stew on the stove too long. With our keys inside we are “locked out.” A recipe for disaster or another inconvenience to push through. My grandmother’s advice was to “push it away mamala” when adversity dialed my number. So I dug down deep to the bottom of my soul and I tried. Hello 24/7 locksmith can you help me out? I am on a journey of discovery and I need a push to get there. As I see it I am no longer going to the butcher for flowers. I am starring down life ” in your face”- being thankful I didn’t get closed out of the mah Jong game. Let’s do it Tuesday.

When you’re spending time in a “camp”for grown-ups the days pass quickly and the seasons even quicker. When early bird specials don’t only pertain to what time dinner hour is, your understanding of the passing of time comes into play differently. Days become jam packed and weeks even busier. With your juices flowing and your energy level in third gear you hit the ground running. You couple grander expectations with bated breath and plunge into a higher level of activity. Is it that our physics have changed, causing our motivation to become more rapid, or is this all a tissue of guess work? Perhaps it’s the awareness of time being delivered like the daily paper or the knowledge that the unknowns come with rapid fire frequency? What actually kicks our butts to get busy? Warm weather offers the summer break kind of feel of our yesterday’s. With luck we appreciate that our yesterday’s are to be cherished and our tomorrow’s even more so. There we are another chance to carve out my pumpkin with a Happy Face.

“I heard the news today oh, boy!”- 2019 Woodstock 50th Reunion planned. So vividly remembering drudging thru the mud to Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young swooning favorite tunes i.e.”Teach Your Children Well.” 50 years ago the number is unimaginable and yet the memories linger on. I am a sucker for nostalgia these days. Love my old pictures and debriefing the past with consistent frequency. I had friends then that I have now. Tonight I am sharing an evening with my Jill. We walked to school together everyday starting in Junior High. We will have a Vodka Grande and talk about how lucky we are that we stayed so good, for so long. Our catch ups, albeit infrequent, offer the run up and hug kind of times that I would run to save in case of fire. Our husbands will chat away, and after a quick catch up we will spend our time basking in the knowing of how special “WE” are.

Next month I am having 

a very frequent lunch with The Julia’s-the acronym I penned for “just us ladies into aging.” A group of women whose only requirement for entry is feeling the love from yes, Junior High School thru the Woodstock years. 

I followed the lead of a group of men I knew about who are called the Romeo’s- (retired old men eating out). We love the tradition and respond to the frequent reminder with a resounding “yes, I’m in for sure.” Another item I’m running for in case of…

Last evening we went to a performance at the most charming of theater’s in Boca Raton called The Wick. It’s a throwback to the days of cabaret and houses memorabilia of days gone by, when song was song. Lady Gaga I love you, but when you’re crooning with Tony I Love you more. We saw a performance of the show Curtains. Two of my favorites Kander and Ebb wrote the tunes. My take away song “I Miss the Music.”I was bred with an affinity for music. My parents played their 78’s of Frank Sinatra, Tony Bennett and the resplendence of The Gershwin Brother’s. I had a small Record player cased in red and white leather. I had a collection of yellow disks that converted my 78’s of Johnny Mathis into my 45’s of Blue Moon and My Boyfriend’s Back. I would close my light, get tucked into my single bed and fall asleep imagining how my days of glory would play out. The sound that would startle me back to being “15” was the needle hitting the record at the end of it.

When we returned from the show last eve we caught up on the debate a.k.a.cat fight. 

Unheard of rhetoric in a debate when The Grateful Dead were Greatful , when we loved seeing what Jackie Kennedy was wearing on the cover of Look Magazine and when I gathered my school books as Sophie screamed up to me In the morning- “Hurry up Jill is here to gather you on route to Junior High.”

Blusterous beginnings , slow starts become the back drop to my new endeavor. My challenge is not allowing a chance mishap from becoming the pinion to my sails. With first day of school anticipation I enter my new life in a winter wonderland. Is it possible I’ll drag my old set of behaviors and guard my feelings with ironclad fists into this new arena? -yes it’s possible. With knowledge that the luxury of time is no longer my leading lady, it’s probable I’ll dance my way in. Old habits die hard even when Father Time is blinking at you. So I pick up where I started off and I “get busy.” I unwrap my new garb, call in some familiar faces and attempt, once again, to settle in.

The “will they like me,” will I get invited backs,” are part of my human mind set. Only now the “do I really cares,” and “how much does it matters” diffuse the intensity of my concerns. 

Enter laughing- as I layer up this experience with all that came before. I add this as one more activity, another game, a facsimile of my “real” life. But oh wait – this is my “real life”- for today, for now. So I take off the new labels from things I have waited to wear, I polish my new found confidence (a welcomed by product of my maturity) and I blow couture kisses at my day ahead. 

Dear Abby, my husband threw out my shoes (Tory Burch black patent, open toe, wedges) after I fell flat on my face at 5:30 Sunday as I was walking out of The Boys – (vegetable and fruit etc. market in Del Ray). After 2 hrs. Plus at the Del Ray Medical Center and a set of X-rays to determine whether my nose was broken( it wasn’t your honor) he decided to do away with what they determined to be the culprit of my fall. When he looked at my blood stained shirt and Rocky Graziano looking face he said “Enough with these type of shoes- you were short when I married you blah! blah! and and third blah!”So Abby, my question is and it isn’t stated in my pre-nup – do you think I am entitled to a shoe replacement or should I just thank my lucky stars that my black and blue face is nothing but that? Thanks in advance, I am Judy Gomberg and I approve this e-mail. Ah Florida! I reached my quota of the unexpected. 

So you literally pick yourself up off the floor and ice your wounds. The surface ones are ice able, the aftershocks still waiting to be registered. Try, try, try and then try something new. How do you divide attitude going in from reality? Hard lessons are hard learned. How may “against all odds” opportunities are we assigned with our footprints? How many come on one more time, maybe this one you’ll hit out of the gates come your way? Is succumbing to the obvious accepting defeat? What is our need to prove fate wrong? When the transitional times come upon us we reach for the glimmer of perhaps this chance is our “eight card fit.” We theorize as we pack our bags, take out our rabbits foot and car service our way to destiny that this time we got our own backs covered. In aftermath reflection, as the aftershocks offer black and blues, we rein our sensibility in and say I think I will try a different sport. 

As timely as the election results I see the message at my door. The Sturm und Drang- the literal “Storm and Drive” part of life is as powerful as it is destructive. If we take the motivation and eliminate the drama the end result will probably be the same. If we worry when we really have to so much inner turmoil could be eliminated. Whether we are waiting for a medical result, an acceptance letter for a job, an unanswered email, an invitation to a welcomed event-we create messy insides. Anxiety is the threshold of destruction. Facing the music times are reserved for worry. Timing for children is elusive. And I quote- we’ve been waiting forever- I haven’t been here in two years- we never come here anymore- Their reality of waiting is impulsive, non-descript and immediate. And—so it goes when we are anticipatory for a bottom line answer. If we could only actualize a positive outcome in the absence of an answer we could bottle the formula and sell it next to echinacea. Crystal ball aside when we get the good results, the email answered, the invite and the job acceptance we sigh a huge sense of relief. If only we could “take the right actions and let go of the results.”

The protagonist in my story is finally ME- I sigh with relief. I am getting ready to watch another evening of Oscars with my form of tradition. I buy the chips, I watch the red carpet expose, and I let my husband know the predominance of dress color being worn this year. I get excited as the entertainment is reviewed and recognized. I re-live the abundance of time spent watching my year unfold through film. Through maturity and luck I get that I am the star in my picture show. To friends I am both cherished and held dear. To grandchildren I shine as my effortless giving is displayed selflessly. To my husband I am a cacophony of sound. My excitement, my dismay, my devotion, my cooking all roll into my rhythm and song. Back to the show and my message. We marvel at the glamour, we pick on the “green dress look” and we pay attention to details as if we know the people personally. It never grows old. Our evening of binge watching all in one evening. We don’t want to miss a moment. As time goes by that is my nexus of purpose. Living the moments as blocks of time. Recognition for my good is now on focus. We all love being appreciated. We all have clay feet and foibles. As the stars on the screen and now as my star is being cemented in my picture show- I have come to understand that we all have those “green dress moments. as “All that glitters…”